Jeanne Pinder
When my TED talk was posted again recently on Facebook, with prominent mention of disparities in lab test costs, there were a lot of comments. This one stood out, so I’m putting it here as part of our “A friend writes” series. She’s in the Knoxville, Tenn., area. “Yup!!! “I had a panel of tests […]
Jeanne Pinder
TED shared my talk on Facebook again a couple of days ago. in a little over a day, it picked up 6,400 reactions and 5,100 shares. (Update: It’s up to 8,600 shares, 8,800 reactions and 596,000 views of the abbreviated video.) Folks, we’re on fire. It’s by far and away the most shared item on […]
Jeanne Pinder
“Health care wonks play a game where they wonder whether health care really is changing in ways that are palpably better for everyone,” Brian Klepper writes over at careandcost.com and the Valid Points Newsletter. “Everyone, that is, except for the senior executives of the drug and device firms, electronic health record companies, major health plans […]
Jeanne Pinder
“This Visualizing Health Policy infographic looks at barriers to care experienced by women in the United States. Women incur greater health care costs than men, particularly during the reproductive years,” The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation says on its website. “Despite a lower uninsured rate than men (11% vs 14%), women are more likely to […]
Jeanne Pinder
His kid was treated at the emergency room at Children’s Medical Center – Plano, Tex., he told us when he shared his experience on our website. The charge was $1,770; insurance paid nothing, and he was asked to pay $1,501.24. His remark: ‘Waited six hours. Very expensive treatment for a kid’s tummyache.” I asked him […]
Jeanne Pinder
The community member shared about an MRI that cost $600 — with a note saying “Cash price was $600, or if I used my insurance, my co-pay was around $2000. I paid cash.” The provider was Bryan Radiology Associates in Bryan, Tex. We’re always interested when people tell us “no one shops for health care,” […]
Jeanne Pinder
My friend Lisa Collier Cool had a young dog who died a few months ago after surgery at the Animal Medical Center in Manhattan. She was charged $9,000, and was irate. Cool, an author and journalist, wrote this letter. Her web site is here. Why am I’m posting here? We hear a lot about people […]
Jeanne Pinder
“The American medical malpractice system is doing almost nothing to improve the quality of health care, research suggests,” Aaron E. Carroll writes over at The New York Times. “What may be more concerning is that there is very little discussion, much less action, about changing this. Despite worries among doctors that they are at financial […]
Jeanne Pinder
Medical coding and billing seems impenetrable — those strings of numbers on a bill that purport to show what was done, and what was spent. Sometimes it looks as if chimpanzees are typing in random strings of numbers. The bills and explanations arrive months if not years after the event. The numbers are unfamiliar. Memories […]
Jeanne Pinder
“Patients are paying more and more for their healthcare services, making effective cost-of-care conversations a skill that providers need to successfully treat patients,” Jacqueline LaPointe writes over at RevCycle Intelligence. “Health plans with deductibles are becoming commonplace. A new analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) shows that about 85 percent of covered workers had […]
